Apple Inc has posted a new security warning for users of its iCloud online storage service amid reports of a concerted effort to steal passwords and other data from people who use the popular service in China.
“We’re aware of intermittent organized network attacks using insecure certificates to obtain user information, and we take this very seriously,” the company said in a post on Tuesday.
The post said that Apple’s own servers had not been compromised.
Apple did not mention China or provide any details on the attacks, but several news outlets reported that some Chinese Internet users have begun seeing warnings that indicate they had been diverted to an unauthorized Web site when they attempted to sign into their iCloud accounts.
That kind of diversion, known to computer security experts as a “man-in-the-middle” attack, could allow a third party to copy and steal the passwords that users enter when they think they are signing into Apple’s service. Hackers could then use the passwords to collect other data from the users’ accounts.
Chinese activists blamed the attacks on Beijing, according to news reports and the Chinese activist Web site GreatFire.org, which suggested the campaign was spurred by the fact that Apple recently began selling its newest iPhone models, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, in China.
The new smartphones have software with enhanced encryption features to protect Apple users’ data.
Apple said in its post that the attacks have not affected users who sign into iCloud from their iPhones or iPads, or on Mac computers while using the latest Mac operating system and Apple’s Safari browser.
The company suggested users should verify they are connecting to a legitimate iCloud server by using the security features built into Safari and other browsers such as Firefox and Google Inc’s Chrome. The browsers will show a message that warns users when they are connecting to a site that does not have a digital certificate verifying that it is authentic.
“If users get an invalid certificate warning in their browser while visiting www.icloud.com, they should pay attention to the warning and not proceed,” Apple said in the post.
Meanwhile, Apple and GT Advanced Technologies Inc have struck an agreement to shutter a key Arizona factory and allow the Apple supplier to explain the circumstances leading up to its abrupt bankruptcy filing, a lawyer for GT Advanced Technologies told a court.
Scant details have emerged since GT Advanced Technologies, which was to have been a major supplier of scratch-resistant sapphire to Apple, filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 6, triggering speculation as to what might have soured its relationship with the iPhone maker and torpedoed its prospects.
GT Advanced Technologies has cited strict confidentiality requirements in Apple contracts that carry fines of US$50 million if violated.
Its lawyers told a bankruptcy hearing they had reached an agreement with Apple that would allow them to disclose most information pertinent to its bankruptcy.
Under that deal, the two companies had agreed to part ways, and GT Advanced Technologies can start shuttering a plant in Mesa, Arizona, that Apple had helped finance in return for exclusive supply of sapphire. Apple will get an undisclosed portion of the proceeds from sales of furnaces in that plant, the lawyers said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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